Everglades rescue progress “scant,” report says

The most ambitious ecosystem restoration project attempted in this country — and probably the whole planet — is the effort to rescue the overdrained and polluted Florida Everglades. But a new report out today from the National Academy of Sciences says the effort is “making only scant progress toward achieving its goals.”

Photo/National Park Service

It’s the second report by the academy on what’s known as the “Comprehensive Everglades Resoration Plan,” or CERP. And the bad news continues. Said William Graf, who led the NAS panel, in an NAS press release:

The attempt to restore an ecosystem as large and elaborate as the Everglades is an unprecedented challenge, but if this vision is to be realized, demonstrable progress needs to come soon. Although the science and engineering that support the program have been high quality, the ecosystem will continue to lose some vital parts if CERP continues on its present course.

The problems with the rescue plan are numerous and detailed in this report, but a lot of the problems stem from the arcane machinery of the federal government’s funding process. And the current financial skid isn’t going to help matters any.

Recall that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist made a $1.75-billion offer to buy out U.S. Sugar and use some of its land for filter marshes to cleanse polluted water entering the ‘Glades. Here are the Miccosukee Tribe’s comments on the idea.

And also check out this well-done piece by Mary Williams Walsh of the New York Times, outlining how the whole Crist-U.S. Sugar deal could well end up benefiting the fabulously wealthy and famously wily Fanjul family that controls about a third of the domestic sugar market.